Sexual exploitation in women’s cycling

The CIRC report made a habit of reporting serious allegations and then failing to follow them up because they were outside of its remit.

Women’s cycling was pretty much overlooked, as the Commission itself recognises and regrets, only receiving three paragraphs on page 70.

Nicole Cooke was one of the female riders who talked to CIRC (Watson)

But mentioned almost in passing in the third of those three paragraphs was a claim that riders in the sport had allegedly been sexually exploited during their careers.

“The Commission was told that women’s cycling had been poorly supported in past years, and was given examples where riders in the sport had been exploited financially and even allegedly sexually,” it read.

Senior figures in cycling have been queuing up to comment on how they would respond to the report’s allegations of corruption and doping, and yet this incendiary — and arguably more serious — sentence in the CIRC report seems to have raised little response.

“A good number of today’s top riders and former riders openly discussed these practices with the Commission,” the report says. “They were described as part of the cut and thrust of professional competitive cycling and were not seen by riders as in any way wrong.

“The motives for agreeing outcomes are many and varied. For example: for assistance in accumulating points in a season, to maintain a time lead, to enable a sponsor to be a stage winner, to prevent a rival from succeeding or simply because they were paid to lose.

“In some cases, it might be linked to doping, for example riders have deliberately lost stages to avoid doping scrutiny or to appear less dominant when doping.

“Bartering can take place not only between riders, but also at team level with team managers negotiating deals.”

The thing with ozone transfusions is that no-one is really sure of the actual benefits of them. The process takes blood out of the rider’s body, infuses it with ozone before injecting it back into the body.

“One rider informed the Commission that by way of using ozone therapy he felt stronger, and that the muscles recovered, but that it had however not been as efficient as EPO,” CIRC says.

Greg Van Avermaet denies doping, saying he is a “clean and pure rider”

Transfusions remain illegal in cycling, even if it’s using your own blood, so it was good to see the Commission taking ozone doping seriously.

As with most of the report, however, the general point wasn’t backed up by any details as to when, or by whom, such activities were alleged to have taken place.

Mountain biking

Many road cyclists have often viewed the baggy shorts and shaggy hair of mountain bikers with some suspicion, and now it turns out they’re all on drugs as well!

Well, not all of them, but the CIRC report says that doping off-road is causing a problem for road cycling too.

With a number of mountain bikers swapping the dirt for the tarmac, CIRC believes some of these riders are taking drugs before making the switch.

“The Commission was told of people who had crossed disciplines, from mountain bike to road cycling, and how one or two mountain bikers were already doping before they made the transition,” the report says.

Ryder Hesjedal admitted he took EPO during his mountain bike career (Watson)

It’s not news that some road cyclists used to be mountain bikers, nor that they took some drugs during their time on the slightly fatter wheels. Hesjedal (him again) admitted he doped in his mountain biking days after being dropped in it by Michael Rasmussen.

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